Hollywood Hospital Hacked Back to Paper Age

Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts data and system files on a computer and demands payment of a ransom to unscramble the files.

Since the attack, HPMC medical personnel reportedly have had to resort to faxes and handwritten charts to perform their daily tasks.

The hospital called in the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI.

The FBI is investigating the intrusion, spokesperson Ari Dekofsky told the E-Commerce Times.

Comma Error?

The extortionists reportedly asked for 9,000 bitcoins -- more than $3.7 million -- to unscramble the hospital's data.

"None of the compromises we've seen anywhere have been for 9,000 bitcoins. Not even hundreds of bitcoins," said Rodney Joffe, senior vice president at
Neustar.

"However, in Europe, the normal nomenclature for numbers is to use a comma, not a period. It is quite possible that this was for 9.000 bitcoins, which is more in line with what we've seen," he told the E-Commerce Times.

"I don't think the bad guys would mind if they got 9,000 bitcoins," he added, "but it's just not consistent with anything we've seen."

Random Attack

The attack was not specifically aimed at the hospital, according to news reports.

"These criminal organizations scan the Internet for openings. Hollywood Presbyterian was probably compromised through a normal series of scanning of the open Internet," he explained.

"There's every possibility that the bad guys had no idea -- because their systems are so automated -- they were attacking a hospital," Joffe added.

Hollywood Presbyterian isn't the only hospital that has been attacked by ransomware in recent months. A regional hospital in Mount Pleasant, Texas, was crippled for a week by ransomware in January, and a hospital in Florida was offline for five days in September after such an attack.